Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 269, 31 August 1891 — Those Government Lands. [ARTICLE]

Those Government Lands.

The question of providing poor with small tracts of land to «ettle on and cultivate, will be one of the issues of the next legislature. This queation already c©estituted one of the planks of the .National Party in 1890, and so it will be agaiu in the National Flatform for 1892.

Even the Reactionary Miseionary Party, who so boldly assumed the deceptive title of ' t ßefbrm l r, are beginmng to realize the neglect of this question of Homesteads, is one full of dangers fbr tfce sesurity and pro6perity of the country: it eannot be delayed ady further. One would thiak therefore that the administration also ought to be alive to the eame, and that the members of the Cabinet,—if meii pf any pratical statemanship and eommon «enee, —would be trying to solve, -ot at least help the matter, even before the opening of the next legislature. Instead ©f tbis, however, the foolish, sensual men of thc pre«eat Cabinet,-who have no thought for the future good of the coantry, but whoee sole object is personal! gratification and present dissipation, and who look upon their teoure of office only as a meana of increasing and prolonging their pleasureB,—theee miBer*ble apologies for statesmen and pofificians, oeem to make it a point, nqtfc v io exhaust all the natural for administrations to eome, but also to render impossible any future improvem«nt in the status of tbe eountry in relation to Homesteads. To that effect, they are disposing ot available Government Lands, in largetracte, as fafit as they possibly ean; for a proofofthis assertion. it is only necessary to look over the files of the diifferent papcrB who re--eeived Government patronage, and fCOunt up the nuraber of tracts of 43rovernment Lar.ds ofiered, —in say the threo last months only,—for sale or long leases, at mere nominal prices, in tract§ ef ten thousands of acres, one of the smallestand latest being of 3,900 acres only. The object of these offers are evidently the following: The large tracts, to debar poor people from bidding for obt>nining the emall patch they are craviog i* vain for; the*nominal prices, to favor the rich land-grab-bers who are ever after the soil. In this inatter, the "Mahope" Minister of fnterior, thus makea one cxcep-! tion to his ü ßy and-bye" policy. ior.he seems determined to allow j his friends the planter6 to ioiprove i the occasion and to lay hold of all! possible available tracts of Govern-! m«nt Laud? before the next legisla-1 ture <x«mes in to kiek liim and his planter protegeg out ofofiice and out of power of doing any further raischief. One might even think ' that- the aim of the present ineumbent is, to leave nothing for the • future rcprcsentativo of the people to do on the land aml j then quietly tell them: 4 *No iiiore { lands for future adnjinistrations to iell or lease, no niore lanvls for t he people to settle on, what aro you | going to do about it V 1 But thc | answer of the people's elects wi!l be eiuipie enough; Ail ealcs or*

leases of GovemmeQt domaia will have be intfestigaksd into, and all spurious or irregular transactions, wbere the law has not heen strictly adhered to, so as to grant undue faciiities to favoritism, and allow illicit bargains, will have to be inexorably cancellfid. and the lands taken possession of by the new who will then attend to the wants, not of the lew. bnt of the many, of the masses and not of the classes. ♦